


Suffer Well

by betweenthebliss



Series: Fragile Tension [2]
Category: A-Team (2010)
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, M/M, Mild torture, Rescue, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthebliss/pseuds/betweenthebliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Face gets kidnapped during a mission. Hannibal comes to get him, but Face has had the crap beat out of him so it's more of a rescue than usual.</p><p>Originally posted at the meme; was going to wait to de-anon on this one, but eh. It's done and I'm impatient. >:D</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suffer Well

"Tell me what I want to know, and I will not cut your nose off."

Normally Face would have a glib reply for that, but the edge of the knife (clean, but none too sharp) is actually pressed against the side of his nose right now, so he decides discretion is the better part of keeping his looks intact.

Not that he's much to look at right now-- filthy; one pant leg torn and bloodstained from where a bullet nicked him; bloody nose and mouth from being used as a mobster's punching bag; and the dull throb he feels every time he moves just about any part of his body, he thinks he must be bruised in more places than not. At least all that shit's impermanent. But Klaus Glazov (who Face has discovered _completely deserves_ his reputation as a psychopath, by the way) might just decide to do something insane like maim him if he gets pissed enough, and Face doesn't want this day to get any worse than it already is.

So he talks nice. "I don't _know_ what you want to know," he says carefully. "I'm not the boss of this outfit, in case you hadn't picked up on that."

Glazov backhands him. Face shakes it off, but then the mobster backhands him with the hand wearing the brass knuckles, and that isn't so easy to shake off. He gingerly feels around for loose teeth; none yet. Lucky. How long he stays lucky depends on how long it takes Hannibal to show up.

That he's coming isn't a question. Face just hopes he's still got all his body parts attached when he gets here.

"I am going to enjoy pulling out your fingernails, pretty boy," says Glazov, his accent thickening. The guy behind him (Face thinks of him as Nose, because Jesus Christ, he hasn't seen a beak like that outside a zoo in years) is playing with a butterfly knife, looking bored. _Fucking Russians,_ Face thinks. _So serious. Give me torture by Mexicans any time, at least they have fun with it._

"Seriously, Glazov," he starts, "I have no idea where your money is, or your rubies, or your middleman. But you know, here's a tip, if you kept better tabs on things they wouldn't get--" he's interrupted by Glazov's fist in his stomach. He gets exactly enough time to inhale while the burly Russian walks around back of him, then he gets the same treatment to the kidney.

"Stolen," he wheezes, but he's doubled over and mumbling so the word is a little garbled. _Fucking ex-boxers. This is the result of there being fucking nothing to do on the tundra except beat the shit out of each other._ They jerk him back upright again and he focuses on breathing while Glazov confers with Nose. His Russian's not what it could be (he wishes, vainly, for Murdock) but he thinks he can pick out "shoot" and "body" and "insane."

"Yeah it'd be pretty insane to shoot me," he says, earning him another punch to the jaw that actually makes him black out for a second. When his vision clears he's still upright somehow, his head lolling back, the bare bulb overhead blinding him. He can't think, his head is throbbing (not to mention his stomach and back and thigh and oh yeah, everything else) and he rolls it to the side to get the light out of his eyes.

That's when he sees the foot.

Twenty feet away, barely visible in the poor light, just behind a set of industrial shelves, and why did bad guys always have their meetings in warehouses and barns and empty mill buildings? Was there something about all the space, or had they just uniformly not realized that bigger places were harder to guard? At least in the sense that if one crazy ex-Army Ranger decides to slip under your perimeter there's a big chance you won't see him til he's already shot you.

It's an effort, but Face tears his eyes from Hannibal's boot. He doesn't even chance looking up at his face because he knows his expression will betray him, hopes it hasn't already with the wild surge of hope, _oh thank God Hannibal_, that tore through him a second ago.

Lucky again; Glazov only just looks over at Face as he rolls back his shoulders, trying to ease the soreness from having his hands tied behind him for hours, ignoring the popping sounds from his neck as he cracks it. "Uncomfortable, sweetheart?" Glazov sneers. "Want this to be over?" He's got the thing in his hand, the thing that looks like a deformed eyelash curler and is made for doing just what he threatened earlier; pulling fingernails.

"Well I could think of a few better things I could be doing, yeah," Face says casually, keeping his eyes trained on Glazov, forcing his mind to stay blank while his heart races. The boot's gone from over by the shelves, which means Hannibal's moving. _Putting himself at Nose's back,_ he thinks-- the thug keeps fiddling with that knife, practically inviting Hannibal to take him out and get the drop on Glazov.

It probably shouldn't be this exciting, but he's not even scared anymore. And God, he'd never admit how much he loves it, but he fucking _revels_ in watching Hannibal be a bigger badass than everyone who comes up against him. It's like pride, but not in a way where Face thinks he has anything to do with it. Hannibal's a force of fucking nature, and when he rolls out guns blazing it's like being on a roller coaster inside a tornado, like all the lights on the Vegas strip switching on at once; yahtzee, baby, it's time to roll the dice.

Two-bit assholes like Glazov never stand a chance once they've pissed off Hannibal Smith, and most of them don't even know that much until they've found out the hard way.

Glazov sure as hell has no idea what's about to hit him like a ton of bricks. "You tell me what I want to know," he says as he strolls over to Face with the torture device clicking like a lobster claw, "and it can all be over." Glazov gets behind him, and even though Face is clenching his fists as tight as he can, he's sore and exhausted and his muscles have pretty much told him to go to hell, they're off work for the day.

Glazov wedges a thumb in and uncurls his fist like it's nothing, and Face feels the cool metal touch his left index finger. "You're gonna regret this," he says quietly, drawing a breath, letting it out fast as Glazov pulls sharply and Face's finger becomes a bright point of agony.

_That really should not hurt that much,_ he thinks distantly, keeping his eyes screwed shut. He knows the lightheadedness is adrenaline and endorphins and all the other shit that floods your body when you're in pain, and he knows he hasn't eaten or had water in something like five hours, and he knows Hannibal is here so he really can't give up and pass out now... but it's close. Stars dance in front of his eyes and the only thing that stops him from going under is the sudden sound, Nose's voice, like he started to shout something and then got cut off.

Face opens his eyes and snorts a laugh. Beyond the circle of light it's too dark to see anything, but Nose is definitely not standing there anymore, and it's ludicrous how Face's pulse is racing, some indescribable mix of relief and hope and some other jumbled stuff clutching hard at his chest. _Everything's going to be fine,_ he thinks, almost a prayer, and focuses on paying attention.

"Alexei," Glazov says, sounding concerned, and then says something sharp in Russian. It doesn't matter that Face can't understand it; he laughs again, even though it sounds kind of gurgling.

"Something funny, asshole?" Glazov bites out, stomping around Face's chair with a casual backhand to his mouth on the way. Face tastes blood again, tongues the split in his cheek and watches Glazov drop the fingernail puller on the table and pick up the gun sitting next to it. He's barely done loading a bullet in the chamber when Nose's limp body is pushed into the circle of light and falls at Glazov's feet. The slackened look on the guy's face is comical, like he's got no idea how he ended up unconscious.

Glazov takes a quick, audible breath, and Face bares his teeth in a bloody grin. "Alpha Mike Foxtrot, _asshole_," he says, spitting blood at his kidnapper's feet.

The Russian looks furious now, and scared. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demands, voice gone shrill. He grabs Face by the chin and presses the gun to his cheek, fat fingers creating all new kinds of pain as they dig into his bruises. "Huh? What?"

Face just lets his eyes slide sideways as Hannibal steps out from the shadows and says, "It means adios, motherfucker," and shoots Glazov in the head.

"Whoa," Face says thickly as Glazov's body drops with a heavy thump, "I thought the plan was to get him alive?"

"That was before," Hannibal says curtly, using Nose's butterfly knife to cut the ropes on Face's wrists and ankles. Face stands, but his head goes airy and fuzzy and he starts to go down like a ton of bricks; but then there's an arm around him and he leans into it, tries to reorient himself even as Hannibal is half-dragging him toward the door.

"There's about a hundred more of these assholes outside," Face says, resisting the urge to rest his cheek against Hannibal's shoulder. "How we gonna get out?"

"You really think I came in here without an exit strategy?" Hannibal mutters back, and Face grins, despite how much it hurts.

Then something occurs to him and his brain-mouth filter is sort of broken, so he blurts out, "Just so you know, I didn't try to take him by myself, this wasn't like Tuco. They jumped me in that alley while I was waiting for Murdock, I wasn't being stupid."

"I know that," Hannibal says, almost impatient, peering out the door to the scrubby field beyond. He turns quickly, his touch light as he flicks Face's hair off his forehead and tips his head back, studying him with undisguised concern. His fingers brush the egg-sized lump on the side of Face's head where the butt of Nose's gun had gotten him, and he hisses, involuntarily flinching away from the touch.

Hannibal's eyes narrow, that furious look again, and Face doesn't quite know what he's doing as he grabs for his hand, fingers like a vice around the callused palm. "I'm okay," he says, putting every ounce of energy into making his voice firm, believable. "You don't have to-- I got a bullet graze on my leg, some scrapes and all this," he gestures to his head, "but I'm fine, Boss. I promise."

"I'll be the judge of that," Hannibal says softly, glancing back out the door but leaving his hands where they are, one threaded through Face's hair, cradling the weight of his head like it's nothing, the other clutched tight in Face's awkward grip. It doesn't seem strange to notice how stable he feels like this; he'd thought it earlier when he was still tied up, but with Hannibal here trying to make sure he's okay, he actually feels like he will be. And Face's filter is really definitely fucked, because his next words come tumbling out of his mouth before he's even coherently thought them.

"Thanks for coming to get me," he says, so quiet he's not sure if Hannibal hears him, not sure if he _wants_ Hannibal to hear him for how raw he sounds.

But when Hannibal turns toward him again there's no doubt he heard; his eyes are on fire with intensity and the set of his mouth is grim, and Face thinks dimly _It's a good thing there's this wall holding me up_ because his already-weak knees just turned to water, something spearing hotly through him at the way Hannibal's look is pinning him, boring right into him, opening him up.

"I'll always come for you," Hannibal says, low and rock-solid.

And just as Face is opening his mouth-- to say what, he has no fucking clue, but he feels like he's been electrocuted, he can't let that just sit without a response-- of course, that's when headlights sweep across the building and they hear the crash of the van plowing through the fence, the shouts from Glazov's goons outside rising in panic, the banging on the opposite door, the loud cries as their boss's body is discovered.

Hannibal tucks his arm tight around Face's waist and says into his hair, "Come on, we gotta go."

Face nods, words backlogged in his throat, and swallows them. He loops his arm around Hannibal's neck again, and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, heedless of the bullets raining around them, just running the best he can while Murdock and B.A. cover them until they're safe in the van. Inside, he sprawls on the floor, not caring or even noticing the bumps and jostles as B.A. hurtles the van over the field and onto the road that'll take them back to the city, back to their bad motel.

When Murdock's done making sure they're not being followed, Face finally relaxes-- or maybe it's more accurate to say he checks out, staring at a worn patch on the side panel and letting the noise wash over him while Hannibal talks to B.A. and Murdock. Something is poking him in the shoulder but he's too limp to bother moving; he can see Murdock's face, his mouth is moving so he must be talking, but the only sound Face can hear is the rushing of his own blood in his ears, until--

"Face," says Hannibal, and he snaps around, eyes focusing. "You need to stay awake in case you have a concussion. Don't go to sleep, you hear me?"

And maybe it's conditioning, maybe it's something else, Face is way too out of it to even know if there's a difference right now-- but when Hannibal gives an order, Face follows it. That's just how it works, just about as constant as anything in his messed-up crazy life can get. So he nods, tears his eyes from Hannibal's face as the Colonel settles back against the far wall of the van, makes himself focus on whatever Murdock is saying, forces himself to pay attention enough to respond.

_Stay awake,_ the words soft in his head like a mantra. _Don't go to sleep._ His chest suddenly tightens at the memory (did that really just happen five minutes ago?) of Hannibal's hand in his hair, Hannibal's arm around him, Hannibal's voice low against his temple.

Face shivers and looks at Hannibal sidelong, quick and almost hesitant; he's not at all surprised to find Hannibal already looking back.


End file.
